How to Whiten Teeth without Seeing a Dentist

A healthy smile can make you feel great and boost your confidence. Unfortunately, lifestyle choices such as what we choose to eat and drink, and how we look after our teeth can, over time, create a smile we are less than happy with. Our teeth naturally age, the enamel gets thinner, and the dentine layer underneath gets darker, which all adds to the teeth being less white than would be liked and can make us look older than we are. A visit to a specialist can help restore the whiteness but at a price. Fortunately there are ways to maintain and restore the brightness of your smile at home, without visiting the dentist.

How to Whiten Teeth without Seeing a Dentist

Brushing and flossing

Keep teeth brushed and flossed clean to prevent staining and tooth decay which both contribute to discoloration. Always wait for 30 minutes to an hour after eating before brushing teeth. The acids in food soften the enamel, which takes a while to recover. Brushing too soon after eating will be too abrasive on the softened enamel and will cause damage, as well as creating a surface more easily stained.

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Rinse with water

Rinse with water after eating to remove the sugars and acids that cause damage. Remnants of foods will break down in the mouth releasing the sugars and acids that cause damage and discoloration to teeth. Rinsing the mouth will physically remove these.

Chew gum and avoid dehydration

Chew gum to stimulate the production of saliva. The bodies natural defense, it helps reduce the levels of acid and harmful bacteria in the mouth. Drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated and prevent a dry mouth and lower amounts of saliva.

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Limit certain foods

Avoid staining by limiting the amount of foods that are likely to cause stains, such as tomato sauce and balsamic vinegar. Tannins in tea and coffee, also found in red wine, stick to the tooth enamel, causing an unsightly staining that is harder to remove. Try limiting the amount you drink, and choose tea and coffee with milk rather than black, and drink white wine rather than red. Limit the amount of sugary drinks such as sodas, and using a straw when drinking them will help limit their damage to your teeth by bypassing them altogether. Eat more crunchy foods, such as raw carrots and celery, that will work at clearing away bits stuck to your teeth, effectively gently scraping your teeth as you eat them.

Eat dairy products

Dairy products are high in calcium which is essential for strong bones and teeth and helps prevent bone loss. The lactic acid in dairy products helps strengthen enamel and prevent decay, and the fat found in cheese helps prevent bacteria bonding to teeth.

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Stop smoking

Smoking not only stains the teeth, it affects the immune system and causes gum disease which can lead to bone and tooth loss. Whitening teeth will be counterproductive if smoking is continued and should be considered a vital first step in better oral health and a healthier smile.

Home whitening methods

Strawberries and apples

Strawberries contain malic acid which has been shown to prevent and remove stains. There are various ways of using strawberries, such as slicing and rubbing on your teeth or crushing them up and adding to baking soda to form a paste. Apples also contain malic acid and act as a gentle abrasive when eaten. As both contain fruit acids, that can soften enamel and cause decay, it’s important to rinse with water after using, and limit the use of baking soda as in the instructions below.

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Baking soda

Baking soda cleans as well as whitens, but is abrasive, so use it infrequently (just once or twice a month). To use baking soda as a teeth cleaner and whitener, mix a small amount with water into a paste consistency and use in the same way as regular toothpaste. This method had been used for centuries, since way before regular toothpaste became commercially available. Some brands promote it as an active ingredient in their paste. Alternatively, sprinkle a small amount straight onto a wet toothbrush or onto your regular toothpaste to improve its whitening qualities.

Hydrogen Peroxide

A useful disinfectant with antiseptic qualities and the ability to bleach teeth, hydrogen peroxide is used in many commercial toothpaste brands as well as in mouthwash, and is an effective way to whiten teeth. The best way to apply this method is to use a whitening kit. These can be bought inexpensively and use either a brush or tray to apply the solution to the teeth, lifting the stain from the enamel. Hydrogen peroxide can be mixed with water in equal parts to create a whitening mouth wash. After spitting out, leaving for two minutes to allow the whitening properties to take affect before thoroughly rinsing mouth out with water.

Oil pulling

This is an ancient ayurvedic remedy that involves swishing oil (sunflower and sesame are recommended) in the mouth, round and between teeth for twenty minutes before spitting out. The oil should have changed to a thin, white consistency. The oil attracts and removes bacteria and dissolve plaque and tartar, resulting in the teeth becoming healthier and whiter.

If you have any concerns regarding any of the methods listed, speak to a oral health professional before trying.

7 Morning Rituals to Empower Your Day And Change Your Life

Most of your reality is not a given. It is shaped by your expectations, beliefs and thoughts you have formed about it. A big chunk of these beliefs and expectations are encoded into habits you integrate in your daily life.

Yes, some of these habits are formed unconsciously and can be counter-productive or limiting but conversely, you can consciously form positive habits that will transform and empower your life significantly.

This is a powerful point of departure that more and more people are becoming aware of. The most common trait of highly successful people is the recognition of the power they have in co-creating their reality through changing the way they think, believe or expect their reality to be.

One of the most effective ways of changing our belief patterns is through practising and maintaining daily rituals. Ancient traditions had clearly understood the power of rituals in reinforcing habits and changing the way we see and create our reality a long, long time ago.

Once again, if you look into the life history of any highly successful individual, you will find some form of ritual in their daily routine. Some of these rituals may seem banal or eccentric but don’t be deceived by appearances. Rituals are one of the most effective self-empowering tools freely available at the practitioner’s disposal – that is, you!

Below are some the easiest yet life-changing morning rituals you can do every day. Of course, you can have your own afternoon or bed-time rituals but morning rituals are extremely effective in empowering your day since they help you charge yourself before it all starts.

1. Gratitude

Feeling gratitude and appreciation for those little signs and moments of joy happening in your life is probably one of the most overlooked or underestimated rituals. It is a perfect morning ritual to start your day on a very positive key.

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The real power of gratitude is that it makes you pick out and focus on what is working in your life – what is in tune with your being as a whole. It is selectively positive. It reinforces happiness and positivity by shedding light on those awesome things, small or big, that grace your everyday living.

Quite often, we just pick out the pain points, the problems, the bottle necks, whatever it is that is not working in our life and causing friction, anxiety and unhappiness. This is like constantly rewriting the script of your life with a negative or tragic overtone. Your subconscious mind follows faithfully that script you write whether it is a negative or positive one.

So feeling gratitude is undoubtedly an immensely empowering ritual. Start your day by being thankful for those positive things that happened the previous day or throughout the week. It could be something really petty and small. It doesn’t matter. You might be grateful for an unexpected visit from an old friend, a beautiful encounter with a kind stranger, a new opportunity or whatever it is that shines your way. Do it every morning and see what happens during the day.

2. Writing Down Your Most Important Tasks

This is a very practical ritual. Start your day by identifying and writing down from one to three of the most important tasks you need to complete during that day. These tasks are ones which support important long term goals that are aligned to your purpose, passion or general direction in life.

For example, if writing a book or building an online community are important long term goals which are aligned to your personal growth, then an important task for the day might be finishing off a particular page or two of the book or coming up with fresh content ideas for the online community.

What is important with this ritual is that you identify these tasks and complete them as early in the day as possible. Of course, you will have other tasks apart from the ones you will write down but, these are tasks which can be tackled later or batched up and carried out in one go.

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Writing down your most important tasks in the morning helps you focus your day and life according to what is essential. It helps you prioritize and manage your time better. As a result, you simplify your life by applying your focus and energy on what really counts for your overall life progress.

3. Affirm Your Goals in Writing or Drawing

This is similar to the previous idea but different in its application and purpose. Writing down your most important tasks of the day is a way to have a concrete structure of action to follow. Affirming your goals, on the other hand, is a very powerful way of crystallizing your vision and goals in life into your everyday mental space.

Writing down or doodling your goals on a piece of paper helps you externalize those goals by giving them form. In return, they are reflected back in your subconscious mind and thus, reinforcing them and integrating them more wholly.

An example of this would be writing down “I am achieving greater success in my career” or “I am becoming healthier and stronger through my exercise.” Notice the present tense being used as a way to tell yourself you are in the process already. Remember the life script we subconsciously follow? You are basically modifying the script to be applied now in the present.

Drawing or doodling can be equally, or even more, effective (if you are more of a visual person) as it summarizes a graphical representation of your goals. For example, if your goal is to build a new house or live in another country, you can draw the house or draw things that symbolise the country you want to live in.

4. Practice Qi Gong Exercises

According to Chinese philosophy, Qi (pronounced ‘Chee’) means the life force or energy inherent in all things;[1] and Qi Gong is the practice to cultivate and circulate that energy in your body. This may sound esoteric or complicated but actually, Qi Gong is really a set of simple exercises aimed at increasing your health and vitality.

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There are numerous forms and practices available for free through the online media. As a morning ritual, I recommend following these simple exercises by Qi Gong master Lee Holden:

5. Drink Hot Water with Lemon

Simply add a slice of lemon in a glass of hot water and drink one every morning. This is a very simple ritual I follow faithfully every morning.

Apart from being a good source of vitamin C and a great way of flushing out toxins in the morning, it balances and maintains the PH levels in the body, reduces pain and inflammation in joints and knees and helps nourishing brain and nerve cells. Here are some more benefits of drinking hot water with lemon.

6. Rise Earlier

For example, you gain more time for doing exercise such as walking, cycling or Qi Gong as suggested above. You gain more time to be with yourself to reflect, meditate or, more importantly, carry out the other morning rituals.

So rising early can be seen as a foundation for all the other morning rituals. Many, like myself, find that they are more productive in the early hours of the day.

Also, various studies have shown that there are many other benefits from waking up an hour or two earlier in the morning. Sleeping early and waking up early helps the body attune with the earth’s circadian rhythms thus, promoting more restorative sleep. Other curious results from such studies show, for instance, that early risers tend to be more optimistic and can anticipate and solve problems more efficiently than the norm.[2]

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7. Listen to Uplifting Music

Uplifting music can have a direct impact on our mood, especially in the morning. It charges us emotionally and tunes us into a more positive outlook of the day ahead.

Most people wake up to music or listen to music as they commute to work. Very often, however, they tune in to a radio or randomly pick a playlist from their device. Being more selective and conscious of the music you listen to in the morning can have a great impact on your day and life in general.

It’s funny how we try to choose music according to our mood. For example if you are feeling down or disappointed by something, you are more prone to listen to music that reflects that mood – for instance blues, sad songs or downtempo music. This has the effect of reinforcing that mood. What you need to do is the exact opposite and retune your mood by listening to music that beats to a different tune than that mood.

Try to listen to more uplifting music in the morning even if, or especially if, your mood does not dictate so.